City of Portsmouth, New Hampshire Police Commission, 16 Feb 2022

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From YouTube: 2.16.2022 Police Commission

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2.16.2022 Police Commission

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I don't want to see.

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Good evening everybody, it is wednesday february 16th and we're here tonight to.

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Convene the public work session on the police department's budget.

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And with that, I will turn it over to the chief and karen okay.

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So, on february 11th we met with the police commission.

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We went through a had a budget work session and spoke about our proposal for our fy 23 budget.

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The instructions we received from the city manager was to create a status quo budget with no new.

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Staffing and no new programs, um any new additions were to be identified separately for a discussion.

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With the commission, city manager and the council and I'll detail those further in our presentation.

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To build our budget, we use a strategic plan uh in our current strategic plan. It's a five-year.

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Plan that's in place so that doesn't look like we're recreating the wheel. Every year.

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Or asking for things that we didn't have a plan for this document outlines a five-year plan for.

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Staffing and initiatives and it's a living working document, uh the items in our strategic plan. We can.

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Move forward, we can move back and delete if we in out years, we feel they are no longer necessary.

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But overall this gut this document guides us to our budget process.

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uh We formalized our planning process as a part of the accreditation cycle and began.

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Producing this five-year strategic plan to be more transparent in our initiatives and staffing needs.

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Speaking on accreditation, it's part of our strategic plan. We are currently in.

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Year, four of our re-accreditation process, as indicated on the slide every year of.

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The re-accreditation process we're required to provide a thousand proofs of compliance.

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Our re-accreditation on-site assessment and four-year file review is set for february of 2023.

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We anticipate earning our second accreditation certification award for clear at that time.

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Speaking on staffing, due to the covid we had delayed, we had a delay in trying to.

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Add additional officers in prior years and this year we're requesting the additional.

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Two officers, which would give us a 69th and 70th officer to our force.

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These positions were once approved and funded, but were lost during tight budget years uh during city.

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What touch excuse me turn tight budget years during times in the financial crisis. It's.

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Important to point out that it takes up to three to four months to get a candidate through our.

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Extensive hiring process, then months at the police academy, followed by a few months more of training.

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In a field office field, training program before an office is ready to be put solo on the street.

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Approving an officer for july 1st, we will not see that officer on the road until the spring.

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If it's a new non-certified officer, this time period can be shortened slightly.

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If we are hire a certified officer.

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Goals and achievements, uh the strategic, the street, the strategic plan keeps help moving.

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Us forward and current year uh fiscal year, fy22 are we've had these uh following accomplishments.

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New firearms deployed majority of that was covered through donations through the weber.

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Monies we received, we are in the process of implementing e-ticket e-ticketing, which.

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Will be deployed within fy22 before the end of fy22, uh we placed our analog control vehicle.

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I took our out of a pickup truck and converted it into one of our older ass police, suvs.

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We use the combo of funds to and remain in grants and budget monies to purchase a new drone.

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Just like cell phones, our drones, the technology changes by the day, um so we were able to upgrade.

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And get some better equipment, we had we outfitted our auxiliaries with tasers.

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In the past, our auxiliaries didn't carry tasers, although.

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Our full-time offices are all equipped with tasers, so we're able to now equip our auxiliary force.

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We purchased a cert van, it was outfitted with weber, funds and uh other outside.

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Donations, uh it's almost ready to play it's it's being completed as we speak. uh This replaces a 23.

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Year old van that had to be towed from a scene on a few occasions as it was on its lost leg,.

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In our investigative division, we re re-implemented our family services division to include juvenile.

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And elderly- and that was something that we had projected out in our strategic plan,.

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Now that code restrictions are lifted, we are.

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Pushing forward with our professional development and training, sending some of our supervisors.

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Or me to the fbi academy and some other perf and executive management, training.

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Fy 22, we just completed our rfp for our new cat rms system, uh it's just being.

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Gone through our legal department now, but should be released within the next few days.

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Recruiting has been a big issue: it's been tough uh finding eligible candidates, but fortunately we've.

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Kind of weathered the storm and have been able to find some officers and fy22 we've had to hire.

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Six officers that have come to us, fortunately, they.

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Were all certified police officers and come to us from all over the country.

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We're still recruiting heavily for dispatchers and that's been a tough position to fill.

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But we have hired two so far this year and chief just to.

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Point out the six hires have been to replace people retiring, correct.

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Retiring or have resigned.

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Looking at the fy 23 budget impacts.

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Through the commission on law enforcement and accountability, community transfer the leak.

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Committee that was created by the governor uh one of the rulings that came out there is some.

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Additional training that all our officers have to go through over the next three years. It was 24.

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Hours fy22 we had set aside six hours per officer in overtime, which is the majority of officers when.

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They go through training, it's it costs us overtime because it's got to be during their off time.

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And excuse me: nfy23: we've uh assigned nine out additional hours per officer to the amount of.

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Three hundred forty six dollars and the final year of fy24 would be an additional nine offices.

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So that we meet the standard uh isn't put in place by the uh committee.

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Fy23 budget impacts looking at the status quo and karen you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but.

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Our current fy 22 budget is 12 12, approximately 12 and a half million dollars.

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If you go with salary steps and the cost of living increase,.

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The budget increase there is approximately 178 thousand dollars with the executive order from the.

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Leak group with increased training- that's forty thousand dollars uh workers when workman's comp.

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Increases seven thousand dollars. We have yet to get a final figure for health insurance.

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And leave that termination there's still a handful of employees within the department.

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That have can sell back their time when they leave the department and there was a plan put in place.

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To put a fund balance in that leave termination so that we don't see a spike in our budget. If you.

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Know like in this last year, we had several people retire. It could have been expensive without that.

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Other operating expenses come down to one percent. Eighty two hundred dollars.

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uh With a total operating increase,.

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Of seventy three thousand eight hundred and fifty, can you explain what that is karen um yeah on all.

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The other operating we put in a cola, usually a one percent colon our other operating and then.

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The additional increases are things like um the gray key software that we use to.

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Do investigations on electronics, everything from the fto software the additions that we needed.

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Even though it's no new programs and whatnot these are things we need to operate, so we had to add in.

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Different things that totaled 78 73 000. okay. So with that our preliminary increase projected.

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Increases 307 thousand dollars, 125 dollars for a 2.45 percent increase and that's.

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Just the status quo, but just status quo for a total of 12 million 861 thousand.

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Now, in addition to that, the increases that we are looking for.

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Moving forward, fy 23 budget would be the restoration of the 69th and 70th police officers.

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At 81.5, apiece we'd like to restore our crime analysts for some of 58 thousand seven hundred and.

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We are putting a request into for classification and compensation, study and adjustment of wages.

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For our sworn staff, with a proposal of 315 000, the total request for the above step above status.

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Quo would be 536 thousand dollars, uh 36 7 536 700, uh well for an increase of 4.27 percent.

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As you can see in this chart here that the majority of our budget is made up of uh salary and.

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Benefits: that's 85 of our budget overtime is five percent. Other operating expenses are seven percent.

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And city obligations is two percent, and karen can you just city obligations, explain what that is.

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uh The city obligations is the leave that term and workers comp. Thank you. Karen can.

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You also elaborate on the overtime percentage and and in particular, highlight the challenges.

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Associated with dispatch and some of the other areas that drive that part, okay, our overtime.

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Especially with dispatch this year, they are significantly overexpended in their budget unit.

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Only because uh we've had to hire firemen other police officers to cover shifts, because we've had.

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So many vacancies, I think at one time we had three dispatchers out of nine um so and we've also had.

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To train so there's training over time, in addition to coverage over time um and then in reference to.

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Our just the overtime, five percent of our budget, um as I was explaining to commissioner sure today,.

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It's not a large piece of our budget, but it's the most controversial part of our budget.

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And nobody, nobody can just do overtime, it has to be approved by a supervisor. It's reviewed.

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At different levels, and even if we're overexpended in overtime like I reported.

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On our police commission meeting yesterday we have salary savings. If we have vacancies.

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And what we try and do is make sure that we don't go over that salary savings by the overage of the.

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Overtime budget- and I think it's also worth noting that one of the challenges with the staffing model.

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We have is that we end up having people have to get called in, because if you have, we just don't.

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Have enough people in the system? So if you have people who get ill, especially with covid we've.

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Had some people deployed for for national guard so anyway, this is one of those areas where.

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It's a function of staffing, size and the realities of.

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And the hopes of you know if we can add the additional two officers that will help cut into.

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The overtime um but there's so many intangibles, like you said, like you know, we had two officers.

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That were deployed for a year, you know, and we have minimum staffing levels- that we have to maintain.

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We are short stuff because we had a bunch of retirements all at once, and you know it.

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Takes time to train officers up so that means you have to backfill those positions of the overtime.

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So year to year those are things that sometimes are out of our control. uh You know special events.

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Like this year, we had seacoast rep, where we had, you know, put a lot of manpower into that event.

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And it was a lot of overtime. That is not necessarily something we plan for in our budget.

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We have a overtime budget to get us through the year, but you know events like that. Last.

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Year we had the protests, um can cause spikes, that uh this happened so um fair to say that.

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um If we get back up to the full quota of of dispatchers and uh uh we're able to add the.

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69 and 70th officers that, without having really being able to predict it, will.

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It will stabilize to some extent uh the amount of overtime over the course of a year. Yes,.

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Right and when we're not contending with a pandemic that results in deployments and other.

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Things too, I mean, I think, that extraordinary set of circumstances in the last two years.

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The confluence thereof right exactly sorry, thanks chief.

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So, moving on to the next slide, uh talking about we added in here our capital improvement plan.

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uh Commission asked to have this included into our budget. Just so you know, residents are aware.

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City capital improvement plan contains any projects over 50 000. uh We have the following.

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Projects that fall into that category under building and infrastructure, we have three projects.

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Identified one is under land for the proposal of a new police station. At this time. There's zero.

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Dollars allocated towards that, uh as we are not sure if we'll have to purchase that's just there.

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In case we have to purchase um some private land, but at the point where at now we're looking to use.

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Land, that's already owned by the city. uh The second project is the new police facility.

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uh This project's estimated to be 42 million dollars. um The request for fy 23 is.

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Point six: four milli: forty million six hundred thousand. um We did a study completed in 2014 that.

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Determined the current facility doesn't meet the space or law enforcement needs of our department.

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The council approved 50 000 of prior cip for site selection and veteran of a few sites.

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Last fiscal year the council allocated 1.4 million for preliminary design once a perspective site is.

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Chosen, so we are still in that first stage of finding a selection up trying to find.

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A site to put the police station on so as we go through those steps, we will start to dig into.

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That 1.4 million and then we'll be looking for the bonding of the remaining balance to move.

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Forward with the project which will take year a few years before, if it got approved, to be complete.

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So, chief, just to put a fine point on that. The the request is not that the city write a check.

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For 42 million dollars this week, it's instead to uh continue to advance the planning in preparation.

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For building a new physicist correct, so we I mean we would just be trying to bond that, but.

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The money would only be released as we continued to the project, um so it would be over time. Do.

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You have a sense of the in the ideal world of uh understanding that uh it's a conversation.

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With the city council uh ongoing conversation, uh the timeline, for example, I mean a timeline- is if.

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You know, and if the fy23 cip got approved for that money, we would probably in a best.

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Case scenario would be three years before we move into a building at a best-case scenario and again.

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Just I mean we started this work when I was on the city council in 2014, which was many years ago now.

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And as the community has hopefully heard, we've had challenges with this existing facility, which we've.

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Been occupying now for 30 years and in the last five years it's become increasingly untenable with.

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The current conditions relative to mold and water and other damage so.

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So the third request in the cip is to address the deficiencies and continue repairs of our current.

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Facility, uh our request in fy23 has been for an additional four hundred thousand dollars. This.

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Project addresses major repair issues with the current facility gets the depart department buy.

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Until a new facility can be funded and built, police department's been allocated, 400 000 in.

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Fy 21 400, 000 and fy 22 to address these needs. uh However, those funds uh have been primarily.

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Redirected to address our molded asbestos issues and never gonna appropriate it to what we had.

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Planned on using for them and trying to upgrade our current facility, so those funds have been used.

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To address our hvac issues in the mold problems that are currently gone within the department.

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We're also trying to address our back parking lot that we've been trying.

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To upgrade for several years for security purposes, where we park, our police vehicles.

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And fy 23 with the mold and applicable problems anticipated, be resolved.

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The department is requesting the 400 000 on this slide to start addressing the delayed projects.

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Originally identified with a project was introduced two years ago.

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Such as redoing, our it control room where all our.

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Servers are placed and the conditions that the room is in now is not safe and if.

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Where they are there's some pipes there that, if they burst, would cause us.

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Some serious problems uh we've been trying to upgrade our locker rooms to accommodate.

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I know our current staffing levels we've been fortunate enough to hire several new.

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Female officers and our the officer, both locker rooms um for our females and men,.

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Need some serious attention, but much more of the woman's locker room than the men's.

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This just to be clear, this 400 000 request is just to keep the department.

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Fit enough! What until there's a move to a new building correct.

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Equipment use this to buy equipment, archive and evidence, storage space.

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um We have a shortage of storage space within our department, so we've been trying to comp.

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Make accommodations for that and create some new spaces within our current facility.

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That would use as 400 000 for for store to make some more storage. um As I said before,.

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Repair, our back parking lot, make it more secure fix the crumbling retaining wall back there trying.

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To update our evidence of middle room in our evidence, room which we've had flooding problems.

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And we also looking for some additional office space, because we have several offices that.

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Are internal and have no windows um so to try to make it more of a comforted.

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Work environment try to find space that people have access to light.

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And just to be clear right now, the vast majority of the department is.

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Operating on the lower level, so they are essentially in the basement right.

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um We are also looking to add two garage bays, because we are shortage of uh storage for vehicles.

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You know we currently have three vehicles between the drove in the cert vehicle and our evidence.

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Processing room that take up all of our our three bays in our garage now so when we have to bring.

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In a car to process, we don't have a place to put it, so we have to pull those vehicles out.

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And those vehicles need to be need stay inside due to several issues with one that make the vehicles.

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Last longer, but also all the equipment, that's on the vehicles need to be in a heated environment.

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Just a point of clark, when you refer to the cert van, what what is that so and mike.

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Is the commander of the cert team, but we are a member of the seacoast emergency response team and.

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We store the vehicle one of the vehicles actually both of two of the vehicles here in our facility.

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Prior to the team, actually I don't know if the team was created.

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Postman police. We had our own swat team prior to joining the start team, so we had.

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A lot of the equipment that the cert team still uses so we've been housing that here.

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Emergency response team, so it's what used to be called swap yeah, our own personal.

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Swat team, but now it's a regional team that we participate in but like, as I said, we had.

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A majority of the equipment prior to joining that team, so we've and we have the facility to.

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Host it, so you know we have uh an equipment van, which we talked about we're getting a new one.

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um And then we have a bearcat, which is an armored vehicle that we store here and to be.

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Clear the the cert van, which the chief highlighted earlier in the presentation, was grant funded so.

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Portsmouth taxpayer dollars are not going to both the vehicles are grant funded right. So.

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There's some ada ramps that need to be uh put out back in the sally port to put us in compliance.

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Is the last piece of some of that, where that 400 000 would go so chief, can I ask um presuming the.

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Council decides to move full speed ahead on a new facility. Would you how would that affect.

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The allocation of resources relative to the current space- I know most of what you've.

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Articulated is stuff that would should have been done years ago. But if we know a new facility's.

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In the works in the next three years with that yeah, that would definitely impact what some of.

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Those projects I mean there's some products that have to be done. It's going to upgrade the hvac.

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System removing the molds, um like, I said, we're probably talking about the past three years so.

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Like some of the locker rooming upgrades bathroom upgrades, um but you know, like the evidence.

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Submittal room put in new storage areas, that's something we may be able to hold off on and get.

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Us through until a new facility is built so it'd just be depending on how long we have to wait.

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All right, also under the cip information systems, are, are all our it equipment, roland, stark.

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Such as servers laptops the rugged laptops that are in our cruisers personal computers,.

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And printers and mobile radios, which is covered under the city side of the it cip, yeah.

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Under the cip, it project our new computer computer, aided dispatch and records management system.

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The full cost of this project is estimated to be about 1.3 million. The current software system.

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Which is mission critical in our police department is over 20 years old. The request for fy 23 is 250.

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000 towards the purchase of this new system prior years of our cip, we have a total of.

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400 000 to date I already have that's already been approved, of the 1.3 million project total.

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The bid will be awarded this fiscal year and implementation will begin in fy, 22.

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Through fy23, the oes fund and identified on the slide will address the remaining costs.

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Of this project, through a payment plan with our the vendor, that we choose- and I think it's worth.

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Highlighting here for folks that this request for the cad rms upgrades have has been in the.

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Works for a long time, the planning and process has also been in the works for a long time.

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The software system is 20 years old and, as you can imagine, technology changes much faster than.

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That, and so even things like geolocation is, is problematic right now, with the current system, so.

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Also to the point that we've heard from many community members about opportunities.

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To better understand, citizen encounters between law enforcement and the community.

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Being able to capture encounter data and track it in a better way, we couldn't possibly do that with.

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The current system we have so this has been a long time coming, I'm very excited, for example,.

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And last night, in our commission meeting, we had the unh intern that has come in here to pull data.

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And she's been here for approximately four months and got one year's worth of data out.

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Of it, so it tells you how cumbersome it is to try to pull things out of it.

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And just the effort with to capture the data and developing an rfp that is really going to be.

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Really beneficial to our whole community, I mean the investment isn't just in the police department.

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It's in the response time for the community members and so that the community might ever.

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The members of our community can have access to data all right. Lastly, is our rolling stock.

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uh Police department currently has 37 vehicles that include include patrol black and white.

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Vehicles, detective cars, the animal control vehicle and other vehicles like the crime scene,.

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Van training, car and motorcycles, the vehicles are set on a replacement schedule based on use.

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For example, patrol cars have a five year life and I usually retired, at over 100 between 100 and 120.

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000 miles when detectives cars are rotated out approximately every 10 years, because they.

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Don't get the the use and the mileage yearly that our patrol cars are going? You know 24 7.,.

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uh We use some patrol cars if they have lower mileage when retired from that division. As the.

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School resource officer car or, as we just did with the animal control officer's car, we use.

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Our cars until they become bombarding some with repairs- and you know they just get too expensive.

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To continue putting them on the road in our fy 23 budget, we're asking for five vehicles.

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In our fy22 budget, we had initially asked for five vehicles and that we ended up with two. So.

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And because of covid and shipping delays and everything else related to the pandemic, you.

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Know our cars that we're trying to order from fy22 we're not going to get until fy23, because.

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It's such a bad lug backlogging producing vehicles, so archives will be at wit's end. Fy23 budget hits.

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This concludes our fy 23 budget public hearing as we state in the slide. Please contact me or any of.

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The commissions, if you have any other questions or proposals uh relative to our proposed budget.

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That's it any questions from either the commissioners.

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uh Well, I just want to thank the team for putting this budget together for all the hard work. That's.

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Gone into it for hearing what the priorities are both in terms of what needs to happen within the.

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Department and and how we can continue to advance and grow the work of the department. So I invite.

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Everyone who's watching and who's, got an opinion about this process or wants to weigh in about our.

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Relative priorities please reach out to any one of us and and to the chief or anyone on the team. We.

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Look forward to hearing from you thank karen for putting this together. Yes, huge thanks to karen.

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And ability to make sure we hit the budget numbers year after year after year,.

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All right, this concludes the public session of our budget camino. Thank you. Have a good night.